Tribeca Yummy Mummy

At the end of this month, I will celebrate my 15th year here in New York City, the place that we call home.  Though I spent more time in Georgia, where I grew up, New York has, at least after the initial hazing period, felt more like home to me than anywhere else.

Sometimes my friends from elsewhere ask me about how it is to raise kids here.  They seem curious as to how it is even possible to have three children in Manhattan amid the dirt and pavement.

While we have no backyard to shoe the children into and while we have no car to throw the diapers into, the city has its charms and its advantages.

We spend about half of our time in the city parks and playgrounds during the summer, play dating and running through the sprinklers.  Even if you have no scheduled play date, you are almost always going to find one of your besties at the playground, and if you don’t, there is always a new friend to meet, one who will most likely be inclined to play Baby T-Rex or Family of Princesses in Florida or, my favorite unique NYC make believe game, “Weekend House in the Hamptons”.  And, maybe to your daughter’s special mixture of thrill and frustration, there is always someone available to try and beat your record of skipping two monkey bars at a time.

The crazy city squirrels are very likely to try and steal your PBJ.  Someone having a fight on his cellphone-and there is ALWAYS someone having a fight on his or her cellphone-will be teaching your children some choice words.  You will have to schlep your often tantrum-ing children as well as all of their paraphernalia up and down subway steps and across town and through crowds, but you will reach the sculpture garden at the MOMA, the sunset out on the Pier, the Bollywood dance studio, the bite of the best cream scones in America, and things will not seem too shabby.

Even in this concrete jungle, there’s no place like home.

Take a look at more home slices via Corner View:

jane – ian – joyce – francesca – kasia –isabelle – janis – kari – jgy – lise – cate –otli – dorte – ali – sunnymama – daan –ibb– kelleyn– ninja– theresa – cherry b – cole – lucylaine – skywriting – anna– rosamaría – tikjewit – juniper –valerie – mlle paradis– wander chow–don –flowtops – susanna – tania –kristin

Here is our belated This Moment this week, Yummies.  Hope your weekend is grand… we’ll be scooping up these 12 pounds of deliciousness (and maybe a lollipop, too) for sure.

Our Mira just turned 6, and in holding with a tradition that we have kept for the past three years, she got to go up to Purl and pick out the fabric for her birthday dress.  Smart cookie that she is, she headed straight over to the Liberty prints, commenting, “Well, it IS for my special dress!”

You see, Mira has recently decided that she is going to be a “fashion director”.  When we questioned her as to what this job entailed, she said that she would direct fashion.  Duh.

Well, that, AND she would be Mayor of All New York City.

Gotta love a girl with big dreams!

We nodded and told her that she would have to work very hard to achieve these big goals but that we just knew that she would do most anything she set her mind to.

Meanwhile, I had a little surprise for her.  Not only did the Birthday Girl get a Modkid Ava in the Liberty print she’d picked out, her special doll got a matching Mini Ava, too.

As usual, I was sewing till the last possible moment before her birthday and decided to improvise a little bit.  Instead of the skirt and shirt that the pattern has you make, the Mini Ava became a dress.  It was way easier (less pin tucks), and it looks, at least to me, just as adorable.  All it entailed was attaching the overskirt to the bodice and allowing the velcro to run all the way down the back.

It turned out so well in the mini version that we might try it out for the big kid version for next time.

Happy Birthday to Our Big 6-year-old, Future Fashion Director and Mayor of All New York City!

This Moment.  A single moment from our week that we want to celebrate and remember!  A la Soule Mama.

Happy Weekend, Yummistos!

Sean has loaded up the Baby Bjorn and gone out for an early morning walk with both of the girls as babies.  Liev had late walks with the sun going down.  He saw the concerts in Battery Park City and people drinking beer in the outdoor cafes along the water, and people lounging on the grass.  But, the girls have gotten their Daddy walks on the other side of the day before the city has had time to wipe the sleep out of its eyes.  There are dogs and prep chefs and construction workers and runners.  People are clinging to their coffees and walking briskly to the subways to begin their work day.  They are all business.

Since Mira was a first child and very, very fussy, Sean would take her out every single morning for an hour or sometimes even two hours.  They went when it was August and steaming hot.  They went when it was February and freezing cold.  You could see how much Mira looked forward to her Daddy Time, kicking her legs and smiling when she saw him putting the Bjorn on, like a puppy who catches sight of its leash.

With Genevieve, third child, mellow girl, Sean has only taken her out early twice.  She is usually a very, very good sleeper, and we can snuggle and sleep in the early morning.  Every baby has a bad night or two, though, and when she has had one-up cluster nursing or preparing for a growth spurt- and when her daddy doesn’t have a huge work load for the day, Genevieve and Sean have been out and about.

When they have walked early like that, so many memories surfaced of that first girl riding in her Bjorn, coming home with pastries from Balthazaar or Bouley.  She would have a gigantic grin on her face, so happy to have been out to see the city and treat those all-business-people to an early morning smile.

One of the biggest jokes in our family right now is just how much these two girls look alike.  I love opening up pictures of the two of them at the same age and having the kids guess which one is which.  Often, they guess wrong.  Honestly, if I did not remember the details behind each picture, I might guess wrong, too.

And you?  Can you tell which one is which?

Need some more EARLY in your life?  Check out these other Corner Views from around the world:

jane – ian – joyce – francesca – kasia –isabelle – janis – kari – jgy – lise – cate –otli – dorte – ali – sunnymama – daan –ibb – kelleyn– ninja– theresa – cherry b – cole – lucylaine – skywriting – anna– rosamaría – tikjewit – juniper –valerie – mlle paradis – wander chow–don –flowtops – susanna – tania –kristin